Let's start with how this book didn't even set itself up well. I was super confused listening to the first chapter/prologue, whatever it is, because it sounded like the publisher talking about the book and I thought it was a forward of some sort that I could skip or zone out on. Glad I didn't since it turned out to be the real first chapter. Ran into one of my bookclub friends who thought the same and did skip it, so I was able to tell her to go back. But I know a lot of bookworms that skip forwards and prologues so this is definitely an oversight of Horowitz to not make it clearer what is going on from the outset. 

The first half of Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is Magpie Murders by Alan Conway, the fictional author inside Horowitz's story. I liked it well enough, it felt like a mash-up of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot set post WWII. The real story, is actually set in the modern day and follows the editor of Conway's detective series because the last chapter of MM by Conway is actually missing (naturally). 

The modern day half of the book feels even more derivative than the book inside the book. It's also wildly repetitive, I think we hear some of the same clues/information three times in some cases. Nothing about the storyline felt orignal, more like Horowitz took all his favorite red herrings and twists from the great classic detective stories, threw them in a pie, and baked them all together using Elmer's glue. Yep, purposefully picked the bad glue since the plot is weak and the solution is clear. 

To add insult to injury, I was telling my husband about the book and he stopped and asked what the name was again because it sounded to him just like the Anthony Horowitz he read recently, The Word is Murder. I haven't read it so I can't draw the parallels but he said it was weirdly similar sounding. So not only is Horowitz derivative of the best classic detective novels, he's derivative of himself. Husband said the same about the second in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series and stopped reading them but he was disappointed because he loved the Alex Ryder books as a kid.